The Memoirs of Mary Queen of Scots (8 page)

From the start, there was never any question of my trying to please the Lords of the Congregation or any of the great clan chiefs—who held the highlands in thrall—or the frightening John Knox.

I went my own way, ignoring what those who opposed me said and thought. For was I not Queen of the Scots, of the blood royal, anointed and sanctioned by God and the church? The true church, I mean, the Roman church, not the rebel church of the Protestants.

I did what I liked, boldly and—as I see it now—rashly and blindly, confident that as queen I could do anything I wanted to do, confusing majesty and authority with real power. It was not that I forgot everything my mother had told me about the wolves, the savage predators that invaded the court (and were often to be found within it). It was more that I was young and arrogant, full of myself and my own exaggerated importance. I had no one to restrain me, or advise me wisely and impartially. My half-brother James cared more for the rights of the Protestant church—and for his own advancement—than for the rights of the crown. My shrewd grandmother (how I missed her!) was too far away to serve as my councilor. Jamie was preoccupied with his
feud with Arran and in fact I expected any day to hear that the two of them had fought a duel.

“How I hate that weak, conniving bastard!” Jamie spat, glowering as he paced restlessly in my small presence chamber at Holyrood. “He won’t even fight me! I sent him a challenge but he declined. He’s a poor swordsman, they say. He’s only good at wrecking other people’s castles. I ought to wreck one of his!”

He stopped pacing and glared at me.

“You know what his plan is, don’t you? He wants you to marry that daft son of his.”

I shuddered. I knew only too well that young James Hamilton, Arran’s son, was an erratic, weak-minded man, completely unsuited to becoming the husband of the queen. And I wanted nothing to do with him.

Feeling oppressed by the somber, angry men around me, the mournful singing of the Protestants who continued to serenade me night after night, the harangues of the reverend Knox and the schemes of Arran and the other Scots magnates, I obstinately followed my own path of pleasure.

I played tennis with the servant boys—and sometimes won. I rode Bravane through the green countryside, uphill and down, even daring, at times, to ride like a man with one trousered leg on each side of the saddle. Men’s clothing served me well when I went in disguise along the narrow wynds of Edinburgh and up and down the hill paths that ringed the town. I danced, lustily and with abandon, to the music that was played in my chamber, the drums thumping and the lutes and pipes and sackbuts blending in raucous harmony in measure after measure. The more the Protestants sang, the more I danced, leaping and twirling with vigor as if to affirm life and joy in the face of their endless wailing.

And I indulged my delight in beautiful, fashionable clothes, for I was then (if I do say so myself) coming into that span of years when
a woman’s beauty is at its peak, and I was—everyone agreed on this—a very lovely woman.

I ordered my dressmaker Mr. Skut to create for me dozens of gowns in shades of fiery red and russet velvet, golden amber and rich blue and green satin and taffeta, with costly trims of pearls and Hainault lace, gold and silver embroidery and wide ermine-cuffed sleeves. I sent to France for the newest styles in headdresses, some steepled, some heart-shaped, all sparkling with jewels and designed to flatter even the plainest face. My wardrobe trunks overflowed with gilded gloves and net stockings, thick sables and long ropes of pearls—all of which I wore, even on the meanest occasions, my colorful adornment in sharp contrast to the stark black robes of the devout.

My extravagance was much talked of, and before long I had a visit from John Knox.

“Forty gowns!” he said as he swept unceremoniously into my presence. “Nor four, but forty!”

“Forty-two, to be exact,” I heard Margaret Carwood murmur as she folded some pairs of sleeves and laid them in a basket.

“Waste! Luxury and waste! And how do you think to pay for it all, girl?”

“I am not a girl, I am your queen. I feel certain the Scottish treasury will pay Mr. Skut’s bills.”

“And where do you think you are then? In France? That rich land? Scotland is poor! Look around you! There is no wealth here!”

I had noticed that there were no swarms of Italian moneylenders in Scotland, and I thought that significant. (It is no paradox that moneylenders gather where the landed rich are short of cash.) I had no idea how much was in the treasury, no one told me and I had not asked.

Knox raved on, castigating me for putting rouge on my cheeks and marring my face by plucking my eyebrows and torturing my hair with curling tongs.

“I know of your light ways,” he thundered. “And I know that you
read pagan books, and visit low taverns, and keep company with a man who is not your husband—”

“What man?”

“What man? Why, the one who put a spell on you, enchanted you. The sorcerer Bothwell.”

This made me laugh.

“The Earl of Bothwell serves me, as he served my mother. He is liege man to the crown.”

“He is your partner in fornication!”

“That is your perverse imagination and nothing more.”

But Knox would not be swayed from his conviction of my trespass. “Your sin is known to the world!” he shouted, shaking his fist. “And to God. You will be punished! You will be cast into the flames of hell!”

As irritated as I was alarmed, I waved the preacher away, and he left, escorted by the guards captain Adrien and another of my guardsmen. But his tirade worried me, for if gossip against me was spreading, especially gossip about my chastity, then it would be harder for me to maintain my authority.

I could already see that the forces arrayed against me were gathering strength. When I went to hear mass in my private chapel, my priests were assaulted and the service disrupted. Voices were heard claiming that subjects did not owe obedience to their ruler—if the ruler did not behave properly. And most ominous of all, the strongest of the clans in eastern Scotland, the Gordons, had begun a rebellion against me and I was going to have to fight them.

It took a month and more for our military expedition to get under way.

With the aid of my brother James I assembled the crown troops, Scots and French, and summoned the fighting men of the loyal clans, oversaw the gathering of horses and foodstuffs, the tents and wagons, the guns and other arms. James was to be my commander, he was experienced in battle and had a personal grudge against the Gordons which made him all the more eager to punish them.

At last all was ready and we set out, making our way slowly northward, a long procession of riders and carts and marching men on foot and on horseback. Blocked and damaged roads held us back, and bad weather delayed us, there were bands of thieves who attacked stragglers and I slept every night with a loaded pistol under my pillows. My shoes were full of mud, I felt sticky and dirty all over and my hair (oh! if my grandmother could have seen it! How horrified she would have been!) was full of dust and dirt. (I did not bother dressing it, I merely pulled it back under a simple cap such as shepherd girls wear.) I was often hungry and thirsty and cold, and so tired, so very tired at the end of each long day.

And dear Mother of God, how I loved it all!

It was exhilarating, being out in the wild country, in danger, never knowing when the Gordon men or their clan allies might descend on us, erupting out of the misty hills in their hundreds, never able to be certain of the loyalty of my own fighting men who might, without warning, decide to join the enemy. My brother had cautioned me that George Gordon, clan chief who was known as the proud Cock of the North, had sworn to kidnap me and carry me off to his captured castle of Inverness, and that many men were coming to join his fighting force.

“If we can take the castle, and seize his guns, that should stop him, at least for awhile,” James told me. “I pray every hour that he does not have help from the English.” Every time a clan rebelled, it seemed, they made a bargain with the English, who were ever hungry to take over my kingdom and who sought whatever allies they could buy. My brother knew this very well, having joined with the English himself when he led the Lords of the Congregation against my mother.

I was doing my best to get used to the rapidly shifting alliances that were the essence of Scottish political life; the monarchy, I was beginning to believe, was but one among a host of factions, each bent on defending its own interests—no matter what the cost to
others. Lasting loyalties were unknown, all bonds were temporary and fleeting.

Amid a torrent of rain we assaulted Inverness Castle, and even though half our guns refused to fire because of the bad weather, our forces proved stronger than those of the Gordons, who after a brief defense, ran like hares fleeing the swift hounds, and deserted their commander, whom we hanged as a traitor.

But the defiant Cock of the North, George Gordon himself, was not in the castle, he had taken many of his men to Corrichie and so we pursued him there.

I begged my brother James not to hinder me in my desire to take the field along with the men.

“I can fight!” I swore. “I can draw a bow, I can ride well, and Bravane is a courageous mount—”

“But can you wield a sword? If you are unhorsed, can you fight on foot against a man twice your weight? I think not. And I would be a traitor if I allowed the Scots queen to risk her own fragile life on the battlefield. Especially when she has no child to succeed her.”

I had to give in to James’s logic. I stayed out of the fighting, watching from a high point, cringing and crying out as fatal blows were struck, urging my men on even though I knew they could not hear me. I was with them in spirit, and when the noisy melee was over, and my men chased the last of the surviving Gordons away, I went down onto the battlefield and walked, feeling an unfamiliar mixture of triumph, pity and sorrow, among the fallen.

I had never seen a battle before, nor the gruesome aftermath of one. Holding my scented pomander to my nose, I stepped out onto the sodden ground, averting my eyes at first from the still, staring faces of men past help, holding my ears when the poor dying horses snorted and screamed in agony, pawing feebly at the air, wishing I could ease the pain of the wounded who lay in their own blood, coughing and choking and calling out for aid.

I saw to it that all possible aid was given, not only to my own men
but to the injured Gordons, and that the throats of the wretched horses were slit.

Before long I was trembling and weeping even as I tried to minister to the suffering around me.

“Here now, this is no place for a lass.” My brother James put a kindly arm around my shoulders and began to lead me away from the carnage. I confess that it all upset me far more than I had thought it would.

“It is a victory, is it not?”

“It is. Clan Gordon will not rebel again for awhile.”

We walked on, then James stopped abruptly.

“My Lord,” he murmured, then began reciting the twenty-third psalm in Scots.

“What is it?” I asked him when he had finished his brief recitation.

He pointed to a body, the body of a grossly fat old man wrapped in a plaid, a tall bonnet with three feathers on its head, the neck and chest deep red with blood.

“It’s the Cock of the North himself,” James said. “The old warrior. Many a time I’ve fought with him. Oh, he was a fierce one, when the battle rage was on him. God rest his soul.”

Just then a boy came by with a basket.

“Here, lad,” James called out to him. “I’ve got another for you.” He took a long knife from his belt and, walking over to the corpse of George Gordon, lifted one stiff arm and deftly cut off the thumb of the pale hand. He tossed the thumb into the basket—which, I saw to my horror, was full of thumbs.

My stomach lurched. I put my hand over my mouth.

“Yes indeed,” James was saying. “A fierce one. But now he’s just another thumb in the basket.”

He burst into the banquet like an angry bull. Flanked by his friend Cristy Ricarton and another man, the unsavory Red Ormiston of Liddesdale, he strode past the long tables of merrymakers, alarming them and bringing the noisy revels in the room to a sudden halt.

He and the others were armed, and he wore his customary jeweled earring and jeweled codpiece. He came rapidly toward me and swept me the swiftest and most shallow of bows before shouting, loudly enough for the entire room to hear, “You killed my father-in-law!”

Startled by the sight of him, and unnerved by the suddenness of his appearance in the hall along with his armed companions, I nonetheless sat where I was, calmly eating a piece of chicken and taking a sip of wine from the goblet at my elbow.

At length I responded.

“My Lord of Bothwell, we celebrate tonight our victory over the rebellious Gordons. You are interrupting our celebration. Remove yourselves.”

“Not until someone accepts my challenge!”

“There will be no fighting here tonight.”

Jamie drew his sword, and in the same instant Cristy and Red
Ormiston drew theirs, and into the banquet hall came a dozen others, shouting, swords raised aloft.

I stood then, and called for the swordsmen to leave, my words drowned out by the clangor of metal and the noise of my guardsmen engaging Jamie and his followers.

In an instant the banquet was ruined, the long tables overturned, the heaping platters of meat and fish, the puddings and bowls of sauces lying in aromatic heaps atop the rushes, the wines running out and staining the table linens.

Jamie, more belligerent than I had ever seen him, was fighting with the guardsmen, swinging his heavy sword like a madman. What possessed him, I wondered. He had not been seen at court for many weeks. He had been noticeably absent from the fighting force that I had taken northward against the Gordons, even though I had summoned him to join it. What had he meant about my having killed his father-in-law? He was not married. And why was he keeping company with the notorious Red Ormiston, said to be a thief and a cutthroat, an outlaw and a receiver of stolen goods?

The banquet had become a brawl. Objects were flying through the air, some quite near me. I heard Adrien’s voice.

“Your Highness, come away.” His hand on my arm was firm and reassuring. I let him lead me out of the room, shielding me with his body. He took me to my apartments and left me there, secure behind two thick oaken doors. An hour later he returned, this time leading a snarling Jamie.

“We have restored order,” Adrien announced through the door. “But the Lord Bothwell demands to see you. He says you won’t deny him.”

I wanted to shout, “Take him to the dungeon,” I was furious, but something held me back. I hesitated, I could hear Jamie alternately moaning and cursing.

“Take him away,” I said sharply, but almost immediately I changed my mind. “No, bring him in. What of the others who were with him?”

“Most have been caught and put under guard. Red Ormiston got away.”

“Damn!”

“Shall I bring the earl in now?”

I straightened my shoulders and prepared myself. I was still very angry, yet at the same time I was aware of feeling something else. Something softer. Something that made me vulnerable. This irritated me.

“Let him come in,” I said, putting a cold steely edge on my words.

Jamie stumbled into my bedchamber, his clothes torn and stained, his jewel-encrusted codpiece awry, his breathing ragged. He coughed and sputtered. His forehead was bleeding, and a strip of dirty linen had been wrapped clumsily around the wound. His hands were tied together behind his back.

I resisted an impulse to undo the crude bandage and tend his injury. Instead I glared in angry silence at this man who I had thought was my friend, and who had been my mother’s staunch friend and supporter, but who now seemed like a stranger to me. A dangerous, brawling, destructive stranger.

The silence lengthened.

“Hell and damnation, woman, my head feels like a burst cannonball. Just go ahead and hang me, or whatever gruesome torment you have in mind, and get it over with!”

I continued to stare at him angrily, but said nothing, while Jamie, his pain evident on his grimacing features, continued to spit out oaths and talk wildly of my putting him to death.

“I ought to have you thrown into a dungeon for what you and your minions did tonight. And for your failure to answer my summons to join with the army.”

“Do it then,” he muttered, his voice low, its tone less wild.

“I think perhaps I shall. But first you will tell me what you imagined you were doing, bringing an entire band of armed retainers into your sovereign’s court, a notorious thief and murderer among them.”

Jamie shook his aching head.

“Ormiston brought me the news that the great George Gordon is dead. I sent up a mighty wail of outrage at that news, I can tell you. I rode here to take revenge. My men followed me.”

“You are not a Gordon. Why should you want revenge?”

He sighed. He was obviously suffering, and not only from the pain in his head.

“If you will unshackle me, and let me sit, I will tell you.”

“Tell me first.”

He was suffering, and I was glad of it.

“I am a Gordon.” He looked at me for the first time since entering the room. In that look I thought I saw, not defiance or belligerence, but defeat. And with it, sorrow.

“I am pledged to marry Jean Gordon, daughter of the great Gordon you killed.”

At first I reacted only to the accusation that I had unjustly taken the field against a declared enemy, and not to the revelation of Jamie’s betrothal.

“He was a rebel. He meant to dethrone me. I had to stop him. It is what my mother would have done,” I added.

“And with less success,” he conceded, wincing as he spoke.

“I needed you to ride with me, to help me.”

“I could not.”

We were speaking plainly. What Jamie was saying was no more or less than the truth. Clan loyalties ran very deep, and could not be betrayed without great cost. He had chosen to align himself with the Gordons. Therefore he could not fight against them.

“Please,” he said.

“Sit,” I told him. Gratefully he sank down heavily onto a bench, his hands still tied awkwardly behind him.

“It’s my sister. She insisted. If I didn’t pledge myself to Jean, she said, then Jean would marry a McCloud. She threatened to use her powers on me. I didn’t dare go against her. And she is my sister, after
all. What she’s saying is for my own good, much as I hate hearing it, being forced to do it.”

He ended in a spasm of coughing.

My anger had lessened. I went over to my wash basin, took a cloth and dipped it in the water. Then I went to him and gently wiped his bloody forehead. He winced at my touch, but I continued, pausing to untie his hands. When I had cleaned his face I undid the crude bandage and tried to clean the wound as well. He will have a scar, I thought. Not a battle scar, honorably won, but a scar from a brawl. A brawl he provoked.

He fights when he is frustrated, when things go against him, I thought. When things happen that hurt him. What was hurting him now?

“I am not going to have you tortured, or kept in the castle dungeon. You must ask my formal pardon, on your knees, in the presence of the court, however.”

“And Cristy too? He means you no harm. He is merely loyal to me.”

“Yes, Cristy too. But the others must be punished.”

He nodded.

As I bent low over his forehead, he surprised me by reaching up to my face with one hand, and rubbing one knuckle against my cheek. He drew it along, slowly.

“So soft, so soft,” he murmured.

I knew in that moment that there had been much more between us all along than friendship. I knew what was hurting him. He was fond of me. Very fond. He did not want to marry another woman.

I caught his hand in mine.

“Orange Blossom,” he said, “you know as well as I how it is with us. We highborn folk cannot follow our inclinations. We must do as our honor requires. As our families dictate.”

“Must we, always?” In that moment I wanted more than anything to kiss his rough hand, to kiss his poor injured face.

We looked into each other’s eyes.

“Ah! If only . . .” he began. Then the oaken doors opened and my stepbrother James was ushered in.

I quickly let go of Jamie’s hand, but not so quickly that James was unaware of the intimate exchange between us.

“James,” I said, clearing my throat, “the Earl of Bothwell has asked for my pardon, for what he and the others did tonight, and I have agreed to grant his request, provided he humbles himself publicly. He has also explained to me that he is pledged to marry Jean Gordon. That is why he did not join with us in fighting the Gordon clan rebels.”

James sneered. “You acted like a Gordon tonight,” he said to Jamie. “You disgraced yourself. You dishonored this court.”

“I very nearly got myself killed too,” Jamie retorted. “See for yourself.”

My brother glanced at Jamie’s wound. I noticed that he himself was unscathed. Either he had not taken part in the fighting or he had acquitted himself expertly. I did not know which.

“Your Highness,” my brother said, pointedly turning away from Jamie, “I came to tell you that there has been—an unpleasant incident. A madwoman in a red gown has been seized at the palace gates. She is raving in an unknown tongue. What shall I do with her?”

I looked at Jamie.

“The Scottish wife,” I said.

“No, God help me,” was Jamie’s plangent cry. “Not now!”

“James, will you please take the earl to Dr. Bourgoing. Then go to the kitchens and find me a girl who speaks Norwegian. Then bring the girl and the madwoman to me—along with Adrien.”

My brother looked at me, incredulous.

“You are going to interview this madwoman?”

I smiled as Jamie hurried toward the door. “We are old friends,” I said. “We met in France. And we have urgent business to conduct. We shall conduct it tomorrow. Now go!”